Naturelog: Thursday 26th June (1)

Decide that today I am going to catch up with all my local dragonfly and butterfly survey work for June. My first stop is Eltham Park, Shepherdleas Woods and Oxleas meadows which is a new site I have been asked to monitor this summer. These 3 different habitats are connected and run from south to north. Eltham Park also has a pond in it so there is the possibility of some dragonflies on the site.

Eltham Park

Pond – Eltham Park

Shepherdleas Woods

The Park has plenty of butterflies almost all of them Meadow Browns, but this bodes well for other species later in the summer.

Meadow Brown

Meadow Brown

The Pond unfortunately shows no sign of dragonflies, perhaps because there is quite heavy tree cover which restricts the sunny warm places at its edge. No butterflies seen in the wood but Oxleas meadows turns up a treat with 5 Small Tortoiseshells and 2 Red Admirals all very keen to have their photos taken. In the end I had to stop myself taking photos as they just sat there.